NBCSN’s coverage of the 2018-19 NHL season continues with Sunday night’s matchup between the Edmonton Oilers and Vegas Golden Knights. Coverage begins at 10 p.m. ET on NBCSN. You can watch the game online and on the NBC Sports app by clicking here.

Like the first game of Sunday’s doubleheader on NBCSN, the second features a team whose playoff hopes are on life-support at the moment.

The Edmonton Oilers scored a big win last night, 3-2 in overtime against the Arizona Coyotes — but only gained a point after not being able to close Arizona out in regulation. The Oilers are seven points back of the idle Coyotes and have a game in hand, so theoretically, a win vs. Vegas in the second half of a back to back would place them within five points.

“I’ve liked our game coming back from the bye week, minus a couple of hiccups here and there,” Connor McDavid said after the game. “We haven’t necessarily been rewarded by it, but we are starting to now.”

McDavid will be featured on Star Sunday. He had his hand in all three of Edmonton’s goals on Saturday, including potting the game-winner in overtime. Oilers head coach Ken Hitchcock called it a “typical Connor game” and said, “he wasn’t going to be denied.”

McDavid is on a run of seven straight multi-point games, matching the longest streak of the season, which is shared by Auston Matthews and Nikita Kucherov. The 22-year-old is average 1.54 points per game, which would be a career-high. Thus, he’s on pace to set a new career-high in points. He had 108 last season and enters Sunday with 103. He’s set a new career-high in points in every season he’s played in the NHL.

Vegas enters the day firmly entrenched in third place in the Pacific Division, where they sit five points up on the Arizona Coyotes with a game in hand. Their current form has seen them win of seven of their past eight, erasing a spell prior to it where they lost six-of-seven.

The reason for the turn around has been an uptick in scoring and a downtick in goals allowed — usually a pretty good mixture for finding success.

“When we play our best hockey, it starts in the defensive end, and that’s really important to our group,” Golden Knights coach Gerard Gallant said after their win against Dallas on Friday. “I don’t want us to be a high-flying team. I want us to be a good, solid team and find ways to grind out wins like we did tonight.”

Part of the scoring has come from Mark Stone, who went from having one assist in his first four games with his new team to having two goals and three assists in over his past four outings.

“I’m starting to settle in,” Stone said. “It’s been pretty easy so far. Teammates have been really good with me. You almost get that feeling that you’ve been here for a lot longer than you have. Even though I’ve been here for two weeks, I’m starting to get a lot of familiarity.”

Quite a few goalies made life miserable for teams in desperate situations, and Crawford topped the list. He generated an impressive (and, for the Canadiens, deeply annoying) 48-save shutout on Saturday, absolutely stealing a win for the Blackhawks. Even with Chicago now on a five-game winning streak, it would be surprising if we look back at that shutout as anything more than the Blackhawks spoiling a chance for Montreal to improve its playoff chances.

Again, that was in the air on Saturday.

Red Wings fans are likely reading through prospect rankings and wondering who will run the team in the future right now, but getting wins at this time of year? They might be rooting for the opposite, at least those who cross their fingers for higher draft lottery odds.

With that in mind, Jonathan Bernier wasn’t just a spoiler for the Islanders in making 41 out of 42 saves; he was, to an extent, a spoiler for his own team … depending upon how you look at things.

Blues goalie Jordan Binnington is doing the opposite of spoiling the Blues’ season, but he certainly robbed the Penguins often, making 40 of 41 saves. (Also of note: Anders Nilsson generated 35 saves as the Senators upset the Maple Leafs.)

It’s difficult to differentiate some strong three-point performances from Saturday, except one stands out as pretty tough to deny. Killorn generated a hat trick as the Lightning beat the Capitals in a testy game.

Killorn now has 16 goals in 2018-19, leaving him three behind his career-high of 19.

If you want to bring it back to playing spoiler again: the Lightning have basically everything locked up right now, so they messed up the Capitals’ chances of fattening their lead for the Metropolitan Division title.

Like Dadonov, McDavid generated two goals and one assist for his three points (Barkov had thre assists).

McDavid gets the edge in some ways, and no, it’s not just that he’s Connor McDavid. For one thing, McDavid nabbed a game-winning goal with his overtime-winner. For another, McDavid scored this way for his other goal, generating arguably the highlight of the night:

So, slight advantage: number 97.

(Oh yeah, and the Oilers beat the Coyotes in OT, spoiling Arizona’s efforts to get a full two points.)

Highlight of the Night

Actually, I’m call it: that McDavid goal was the highlight of the night. So, with that, enjoy a bonus: the latest Hurricanes win celebration goes the “curling” route.

Question: does this mean they’re only getting more ingenious with their celes, or are they running out of ideas?

Connor Hellebuyck hits the 30-win mark once again. This makes for a nice feat for him, and quite the indictment on those who came before him, as he’s the only Thrashers/Jets goalie to post consecutive 30-win seasons.

Jordan Staal scored his 500th point, allowing him to join his brother Eric Staal on a select list of siblings:

Three stars

When the elite, Vezina-caliber Sergei Bobrovsky shows up on any given night, the Columbus Blue Jackets are nearly unbeatable. Such was the case on Friday.

‘Bob’ stopped a whopping 46 shots from the Corsi Kings (Carolina Hurricanes), who pelted Columbus’ No. 1 at every juncture, including 22 shots in the second period.

Bobrovsky was up to the task on each and every one of them, including multiple 10-bell saves to keep the clean sheet — the 30th of his career. Columbus, meanwhile, scored three times on 20 shots, including a shorthanded goal in the third period to win their second straight game.

They’re now on 83 points, tied with the Hurricanes and two points ahead of the idle Montreal Canadiens.

Toronto has a litany of weapons at its disposal, but the one they have in Matthews is by far the most clutch.

And Matthews came through in that clutch scenario on Friday, scoring twice in 2:11 in the third period to give the Maple Leafs a 6-5 and 7-5 lead. His second (which may have been a hat-trick goal if not for this) stood as the game-winner after James van Riemsdyk completed his own hat trick late (honorable mention to JvR, who was a force for the Flyers).

Toronto is two points back of the struggling Boston Bruins now for second in the Atlantic. Given that these teams are likely to play each other in the first round, there’s a mini-battle here now for who gets home-ice advantage.

Highlights of the night

We’ve seen several of this flip passes lately, and this one is just as nice as the others:

Score five straight goals against the Toronto Maple Leafs and hold on for dear life.

It’s a plan that the Chicago Blackhawks executed to perfection (planned or otherwise) on Wednesday night in a ___ win against their Original Six foes. And my goodness did they ever have to hold on.

Chicago came out with the determination of a team needing two points to keep their playoff dreams going. They scored four times in the first period — chasing Frederik Andersen after he allowed four on 14 shots — and added a fifth later in the second period, appearing to seal it with less than half a game to go.

The Leafs have been struggling since beating the Calgary Flames 6-2. And it’s unraveled now, after getting made to look like the JV squad against the Tampa Bay Lightning and then decimated once again against the Blackhawks.

A 5-0 deficit seemed like the next chapter in their recent story, but Andreas Johnsson‘s goal with 1:33 left in the second period seemed to give the Leafs some life.

The Leafs owned the third period, with Chicago looking content to sit back and wait for the final buzzer. It didn’t help Chicago’s cause that Corey Crawford, who was solid through the first two periods, didn’t emerge for the third after falling ill with the flu. Collin Delia had to come in cold and the game became very interesting.

Auston Matthews and Co. went to work in the third. Matthews grabbed his 32nd of the season at 7:57 of the period followed by Morgan Rielly‘s 19th three minutes later to make it 5-3. With the net empty and 1:31 to go, John Tavares clawed the Leafs back to 5-4, banging in a shot from a bad angle past Delia to set a new career high with his 39th.

Toronto fired 30 pucks on goal in final frame, with Delia getting a game’s worth of shots sent his way in a 20-minute span of complete chaos.

The final 90 seconds, particularly, were epic and well worth the watch.

When the dust settled after the final whistle, the Blackhawks moved four points back of the idle Arizona Coyotes for the final wildcard spot in the Western Conference. ‘

NBCSN’s coverage of the 2018-19 NHL season continues with the Wednesday Night Hockey matchup between the Chicago Blackhawks and Toronto Maple Leafs. Coverage begins at 6 p.m. ET on NBCSN. You can watch the game online and on the NBC Sports app by clicking here.

Kapanen, 22, was held out of Monday’s 6-2 loss to the Tampa Bay Lightning for “precautionary reasons,” so it seems like the team might have determined the nature of his injury recently. It’s not clear when, exactly, Kapanen actually suffered the injury, with Jeff Veillette wondering if it’s actually something Kapanen had been dealing with for five games or so.

(Kapanen was limited to only an assist during that span, perhaps in part because he wasn’t at full-strength?)

Concussions are never really good news, obviously, but this is especially rough for Kapanen. He’s just short of his first 20-goal season with 19, and as a pending RFA, getting those counting stats could really bump up his earning potential. (Granted, he might just earn his way to the point of being too expensive to stay in Toronto, but there are worse problems to have.)

It would be a serious bummer – though certainly not unprecedented – if a concussion lingers into when the games matter the most, as the 2019 Stanley Cup Playoffs are less than a month away.

So, yeah, this is crummy both for the Maple Leafs and the winger, who’s enjoying a breakthrough season after struggling to make a full mark on the NHL during previous years.

There’s potential for at least one silver lining, however.

This could be a great opportunity for William Nylander to a) heat up with the postseason nearing and b) show that he warrants a longer run on Auston Matthews‘ wing.

That’s where Nylander is slated to line up for Toronto’s game against Chicago on Wednesday, forming an interesting line with Matthews and Andreas Johnsson. (Patrick Marleau – Kapanen’s other regular linemate with Matthews – slides to the third line with Nazem Kadri and Connor Brown.)

It seems like Mike Babcock’s needed a nudge to line up Nylander with Matthews regularly, and to an extent, it’s understandable. Kapanen’s often prospered with Matthews, while Nylander occasionally shines running his own line as a center.

Still, the Maple Leafs might simply have a better chance to win if they load up with two stronger lines, as you’d at least think would be the case if Nylander pushes Kapanen down the lineup. Teams tend to lean on their top lines more often in the playoffs, so while depth is important, it might be wiser if Toronto rolled out Matthews – Nylander and John Tavares – Mitch Marner as two deadly duos, challenging anyone to match them in that regard.

Perhaps it’s true that Kapanen really is the better fit as a second-line winger, while Nylander might fit better as 3C, at least when they’re both healthy. That’s not an absolute certainty, though, and it wouldn’t hurt to see if Nylander can rekindle his past magic with Matthews.

Overall, losing Kapanen still hurts, but maybe it can mean bigger things for Nylander, and the Leafs as a whole?